Judah

Infobox Given Name Revised
name = Judah


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Judah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה, Standard Hebrew: "Yəhuda"; Tiberian vocalization:unicode|Yəhûḏāh, "Celebrated, praised") is the name of several Biblical and historical figures. The original Greek text of the New Testament makes no difference between the names "Judah", "Judas" and "Jude", rendering them all as Ioudas; but in many English translations "Judah" is used for the figure in the Tanakh and the tribe named after him, "Judas" is used primarily for Judas Iscariot, and "Jude" for other New Testament persons of the same name.

The Bible itself mentions no other people of the name, except the original one; however, it became a very common name among Jews in Hellenistic times and remains such up to the present.

The name Judah can refer to:

*Judah (Bible), one of the sons of the Biblical patriarch Jacob (Israel)All later individuals, groups and places of this name are directly or indirectly derived from this Judah.

Ethnic, political and geographic names and terms

* The Tribe of Judah, the Hebrew tribe whose members regarded the above as their eponymous ancestor
* The Kingdom of Judah, the kingdom dominated by the Tribe of Judah and ruled by the House of David, from the breaking off of the Kingdom of Israel following the death of King Solomon until the Babylonian Exile
* Judea, the former territory of the Kingdom of Judah after its demise ("c." 586 BC), being successively a Babylonian, a Persian, a Ptolemaic and a Seleucid province, an independent kingdom under the Hasmoneans regarding itself as successor of the Biblical one, a Roman dependent kingdom and a Roman province
* Iudaea Province, Roman province, with the Latin spelling
* Jew, derived from Hebrew "Yehudi" יהודי (literally, "Judean"); the derivation is more clear in German "Jude" and in Slavic "Zid"
* Judean Mountains, modern Israeli name for the mountains around Jerusalem, politically divided between Israel and the Occupied West Bank
* Judea and Samaria, official Israeli name for what is generally known as the West Bank; this name is disputed by most Palestinians, who reject the Israeli claim to the land, as well as by Left-wing Israelis.

Upholders of the term describe it a being an ancient, Biblical geographical terms. That is true to the extent that "Judea" and "Samaria" are - each one separately - ancient names, used respectively by Jews and by Samaritans who lived these respective areas more than 1,000 years before the arrival of the Islamic armies under the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattāb. However, there had never been until the 20th Century a single political or administrative unit called "Judea and Samaria"; in all previous periods when these names were used at all, they were treated as two very distinct and separate units, especially since in Biblical times these were two separate kingdoms which on numerous occasions went to war with each other, and later on Jews and Samarians were each other's staunch foes throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. "Judea and Samaria," as describing a single area is a strictly modern term, having to mainly with post-1967 Israeli politics.

;Other places
*Judah, Indiana, a small town in the United States

People

Given name

*Judah Maccabee, leader of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid empire
*Judah haNasi, chief redactor of the Mishnah and second-century Jewish leader
*Judah II, third-century Jewish sage
*Judah III, third- and fourth-century Jewish sage
*Judah P. Benjamin, a politician and lawyer in the United States and Confederate States of America
*Judah Nagler, singer, guitarist and songwriter for indie-pop band The Velvet Teen
*Yehuda Alharizi, prominent Medieval Spanish Jewish rabbi, translator, poet and traveller
*Yehuda Amichai, Israeli poet
*Yehuda Amital, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion and a former member of the Israeli cabinet
*Judah Lew ben Bezalel, the Maharal, an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in Prague (now in the Czech Republic) for most of his life
*Yehuda Gilad, clarinetist
*Yehuda Halevi, prominent Medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet
*Yehuda Krinsky, Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic rabbi
*Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, Rosh yeshiva of the Volozhin yeshiva and author of several works of rabbinic literature in Lithuania
*Haile Selassie I, as known by the Rastafarians that he is the Lion of Judah, and is a direct descendant of David.
*Dr. Judah Folkman, American Cellular Biologist. Founder of the field of antiangiogenesis.
*Judah Friedlander, American Actor. *30 Rock
*Judah Grayson, Korean/ American student. First Korean with the name Judah.

urname

*Henry M. Judah, American soldier
*Theodore Judah, American engineer who dreamed of the first transcontinental railroad
*Zab Judah, former world champion welterweight boxer

ports

*Bnei Yehuda, Israeli football team (literally, "Sons of Judah" or "Sons of Judea")

Businesses

*Yehuda Matzos, an Israeli matza company